


give you everything

by skatzaa



Category: Star Wars Original Trilogy, Star Wars: Ahsoka - E. K. Johnston
Genre: Anxiety, Depression, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, Reunions, Supportive Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-26
Updated: 2019-09-26
Packaged: 2020-10-31 03:27:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,606
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20785535
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skatzaa/pseuds/skatzaa
Summary: Ahsoka comes home to Kaeden, and gives her a shoulder to lean on.





	give you everything

**Author's Note:**

  * For [LittleRaven](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LittleRaven/gifts).

> Hello! LittleRaven, I hope you enjoy this.
> 
> I'd like to add in a warning here that this fic is pretty heavily steeped in Kaeden's anxiety and depression, though it's never explicitly discussed in such terms. I realized when I went to go write this that, when I've written Kaesoka in the past, it's been from Ahsoka's perspective. When I tried to write it from Kaeden's, this was the result. 
> 
> Title from Come What May (specifically the Moulin Rouge version, bc _yes_ Ewan McGregor singing).

Kaeden hears the sounds of Ahsoka entering the bedroom—the rasp of shoes on carpet, the distinctive thud of lightsaber hilts coming into contact with the dresser, a quiet sigh of relief. She doesn’t roll over in bed, or pull the covers down from her face. She doesn’t even open her eyes.

The mattress dips as Ahsoka settles in behind her, and then there it he heavy, reassuring weight of Ahsoka’s hand on Kaeden’s blanketed shoulder.

“What’s wrong, Kae?” Ahsoka asks, voice rough from lack of sleep but still deliberately gentle.

Kaeden shrugs, some nameless, unwieldy emotion stuck in her throat. Her eyes fall open, not through any intentional action on her part, but simply because it requires too much effort to hold them closed any longer. In the murky half light of the room, she can hardly see the opposite wall; the bookshelf across from her is blurry and indistinct.

She’s so, so tired.

Ahsoka’s hand moves from Kaeden’s shoulder to her back, where it rubs along the length of her spine. Kaeden can hardly feel it.

She doesn’t know how long they stay like that for, only that it’s long enough for Ahsoka to shift onto her side, her long limbs no doubt tucked up tightly so as not to invade Kaeden’s space without permission. She must’ve grown uncomfortable the way she way before—her weight on a wrist or elbow for too long, maybe—but still, even in a new position, she continues to rub Kaeden’s back.

This is the first time Ahsoka’s been home in—stars only know how long. Months, at least. She’d barely been able to give Kaeden a heads up that she was on her way, mostly because it's just coincidence that  _ home _ is also Ahsoka’s latest mission debrief location, and Kaeden hadn’t been able to tell her about the move for fear of compromising Rebellion information.

(Kaeden has always known that being a part of the Rebellion wouldn’t be glamorous; she just didn’t quite expect to be hopping from planet to planet so often and so quickly that she sometimes forgets which one she’s on, and which she just came from.)

It’s the first time Ahsoka’s come home to her in months, so freshly planet-side that Kaeden can still catch scents off of her clothing, of ship metal and the elusive, impossible-to-describe tang of deep space—and she has to come home to Kaeden like  _ this. _

She deserves more. She deserves better.

Kaeden shudders, the conviction of the thought burning through her apathy until she’s overwhelmed with it, shaking and gasping, hot tears on her cheeks and over the bridge of her nose and in her ear. And then there is the full length of Ahsoka pressed tightly against her, an arm curled over her side so that one hand can rest over Kaeden’s heart.

Kaeden chokes on the strength of the emotions bearing down on her—the self-hatred, the despair, the exhaustion, the urge to just give up and do nothing else, ever again. She’s glad, foolishly, to not be able to touch the Force like Ahsoka can; she doesn’t need to feel Ahsoka’s pity on top of everything else. 

“I just want it to  _ stop,” _ she manages, misery strangling her voice until it’s little more than a breath.

But Ahsoka understands anyway.

“I know, Kae,” she says, voice low and kind. Her arm tightens around Kaeden’s chest, and she holds her, whispering soothing words that mean nothing at all, until Kaeden can draw a breath without it turning into a sob. 

Floating in the strange stillness that often follows a breakdown, their room is too large and too silent after her tears, mocking her.

But no—she doesn’t want to fall into that same hole again. She focuses on that—stillness; stillness is better than chaos—until she feels steady enough to squirm a little and roll over so that she’s facing Ahsoka, who’s lying with her head supported by her free hand, eyes bright even in the gloom.

“Your lekku grew again,” Kaeden says. It’s the most asinine thing she could possibly say right now, but it’s also true: the one lek she can see is long enough now that its tip can rest fully against the sheets, even with Ahsoka propped up in such a way. The stripes are thinner now, too, and jagged as scars. She still remembers the straight-edged bands she had first admired on Raada, and wonders at how far they’ve managed to come together.

“Yeah,” Ahsoka says, and grimaces. There’s an entire story in that motion alone, and Kaeden frowns in sympathy; the way the hide stretches to accommodate growth spurts is painful, to say the least. “It made some of my… activities a lot more interesting, that’s for sure.”

Kaeden lets her eyes trace over the shape of the lek again, and then up. Is she imagining it, or is there the slightest curl to Ahsoka’s montrals now, when they had been straight before? It’s hard to believe that they’re growing older, even with the evidence right in front of her.

She says, “I thought we were still a few years out from your next growth period.”

“Yeah, well, you know how these things go,” Ahsoka says with a half shrug. Now that Kaeden is paying attention, she can see the way Ahsoka is keeping as much pressure off her lekku as possible, which isn’t helped by the way they’re positioned.

Ahsoka’s eyes meet Kaeden’s, and therything about her softens. She asks, “You want to talk about that at all?”

Despite herself, Kaeden feels her eyes begin to burn again at even the mention of her little meltdown. She wants, desperately and with a suddenness that takes her by surprise, to curl up against Ahsoka and press her face into the soft, warm spot between her lek and neck. She hasn’t been so desperate for that sort of physical reassurance since she was a teenager, newly inducted into Bail Organa’s growing Rebellion, without her home and most of her people, even her sister housed somewhere else.

But Ahsoka is exhausted and going through a painful process that very few adult humans can understand. She doesn’t need Kaeden’s self-centered desire to cuddle adding to her troubles.

Ahsoka’s face twists up in the expression she always makes when she does something in the Force and doesn’t like the results.

It’s cheating, plain and simple, but Kaeden doesn’t argue when Ahsoka shifts so that she’s leaning against the plain headboard and says, “C’mere.”

This is another favorite spot of hers—Ahsoka sitting upright, cradling Kaeden as she lies beside her, head pillowed by one of Ahsoka’s arms. It’s comfortable and protective and everything she needs right now.

Kaeden lets her eyes drift closed, her head tilting to the side until it rests against Ahsoka’s hip. It’ll be hell on her neck later, but for now, it’s perfect. More tension seeps out of her as Ahsoka begins smoothing a finger over the skin just above Kaeden’s left eyebrow, an old trick her mom would use to calm her down that she taught Ahsoka years ago. 

“Has this been happening more often recently?” Ahsoka asks.

Kaeden doesn’t ask for clarification on what  _ this _ is; of the long list it could be, Ahsoka is probably including all of the options. She tries to think, to remember what the last few months have been like, but only unearths the fog that has trailed after her from the moment she landed on the planet. Everything is distant and blurred in comparison.

She shrugs.

“Okay,” Ahsoka soothes, fingertip still swiping with deliberate slowness. “Have you talked with Dr. Fan’qura about it?”

Kaeden squeezes her eyes tighter, but she still feels the paths her tears track as they slip down her cheeks.

“She was redirected somewhere else when I was sent here,” she rasps. She breathes deeply through her nose, trying not to let her grief—her ridiculous, irrational grief—overwhelm her. “Her ship was attacked in transit and, officially, she’s MIA.”

MIA, practically speaking, means that she’s dead. Everyone in the Rebellion knows that.

Ahsoka makes a shocked noise, low in her throat, her finger stilling for only a moment. They’ve both know many, many people who have died in this mess (it’s too drawn out, ineffective, and one-sided to be called a war, not yet, no matter what the fanatics think). One more—a therapist Kaeden hardly knew, rather than someone she’d truly cared about—shouldn’t affect her so much.

But it isn’t just Dr. Fan’qura’s death. It never is. It’s that, and this  _ war _ , and a million other things that stack themselves on top of her chest until she can’t breathe properly.

“Okay,” Ahsoka says again, forever trying to smooth away her worries and pains. Kaeden hasn’t even  _ tried _ asking how she’s feeling, she’s so  _ selfish— _

“ _ Okay,” _ Ahsoka says a third time, voice harder now. No doubt she’s picked up on the direction of Kaeden’s thoughts, or at least her general feelings, as she often does. At this point, Kaeden doesn’t know if it’s the Force, or how well they know one another, or some combination. “There’s no need for the self-deprecation right now. Relax, my heart, I’m here and you’re safe.”

And Kaeden, tension leaking out of her without her realizing it was there moments before, because her as she always does. Ahsoka is okay and Kaeden will be too.

“Sleep,” Ahsoka tells her, voice laden with power that she uses only because she knows, from long conversations, that Kaeden is comfortable with it. “I’ll be here when you wake.”

Kaeden believes her. She sleeps.

**Author's Note:**

> I just realized that they didn't even kiss in this; it's interesting how many forms intimacy can take. This doesn't have any bearing on the fic, but I'm imagining this is sometime before ANH; they've both grown quite a bit, both together and separately, but the conflict with the Empire hasn't yet come to a head, so they spend much of their time apart, doing what needs to be done for the Rebellion. 
> 
> Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed!


End file.
